From the beginning
by Sadder.than.Silence
Summary: Gale realizing how difficult it's sometimes making the right decision.


**From the beginning**

* * *

"I don't want to have children".

"You mean not at the moment?"

"I think not ever, Gale."

She had told him hundreds of times, he didn't know why he kept asking. Or even speaking, when his natural state was silence. The best thing he could do was keep his mouth shut, on that subject at least. He looked at her sideways, she had her eyes narrowed, protecting them from the sun. Freckles had come out. Springtime sun always filled her nose with freckles. Gale loved freckles.

"Do you want to have a turkey for dinner?" He asked, rising and offering his hand. Food was a safe topic. He could talk about that.

"I sign up," she said.

* * *

There was Katniss and then there were other girls. Jena Moon was in the same course than him, she was the daughter of the District shoemaker. She had long black hair like a curtain and light skin, she looked like a fairytale princess. Jena always wore dresses. Jena didn't like him going out into the forest or going hunting, but she used to made jam and chestnut puree with the gifts Gale brought her. Jena's mother was dead. She was half orphaned, like Katniss, like him.

"Gale," Jena said one day, with her hair in a ponytail and her hands sunk in a cookie dough, "can you help me with this?"

Gale looked at her. They were in her kitchen, her father was in the workshop, at the bottom of the house. A soft light, mid-afternoon, slipped through the curtains (two floors, curtains, Gale had none of that in his house, neither cookie dough) and Jena was beautiful. A lock of black hair fell over her eyes. Jena was blowing it with a face of exasperation. Her hands were stained with oil and her face was stained with flour.

"Sure," he said as he approached her. He took the lock of hair between his fingers. It was soft, it looked like tar on her white skin. He put it behind her ear and kissed her lips softly, taking her neck with one hand.

"Gale," Jena said again in a mellow tone, just after the kiss, both staring into each other's eyes, "do you love me?"

That was a question that Gale couldn't answer yet. Jena liked him. He wanted her very much. But…

Gale kept one hand in her hair and went down the other toward her thigh, then over the thigh, dragging the dress with his touch. He sat her on the table and kissed her again. The two ended quite dirty.

* * *

It was a little cheese of Prim, with apple on the top, honey and a match burning. His birthday cake. Katniss had unwrapped it gently, as if it were a treasure. She lit the match just at the end and, hurried to nail it over the apple and cheese.

She didn't say happy birthday. She said:

"You have to blow it quick or the wind will blow it out."

Gale did not blow it, he just stared at her, with a silly smile on his lips.

They wasted another three matches until Gale blew out his birthday candle and Katniss didn't even leave to home sulking.

* * *

Lara was the daughter of a Peace Agent. She was sweet and dangerous as a wild kitten. She was older than him and she led his hands, from her hair to her hips, from her hips to her chest and to the edge of her skirt. Lara didn't care about winter, she didn't mind cold or ice, she didn't care about hard surfaces or stains. She didn't care about scratches on her knees. Lara was hardly bothered by anything.

* * *

"We've won," Gale said.

"Don't get confused, we haven't won anything."

Gale turned to look at her. She was ahead to him, in a game of hunting.

"But we are free," he decided to refuted. "They can't choose me, they can't choose you. We are free to do whatever we want".

"Oh yeah?" Katniss replied. "Locking yourself in the mine every morning is what you understand by doing whatever we want?"

Gale braked suddenly. She had touched his fiber. After Katniss's last harvest, when it had finished and she had continued at home with him, he had felt elated. But both were still tied to the District, still tied to the Seam and he was still forced to go down to the mine every day. He hated it with all his soul and it was a difficult matter to solve. He waited quietly for Katniss to reach him and dropped the bomb for the umpteenth time.

"Then let's go," he said. "Let's go far away. We will start from scratch. Katniss, we ..."

"Gale ..." she interrupted him.

He just had to look at her to know the answer. Anyway.

* * *

There were also other boys around her. Specifically there was one, although one was more than enough to bring Gale into a crazy bitterness. It wasn't that she paid him much attention. It didn't matter. The boy was not careful, he stared at her when she didn't realize, he looked at her dumbfounded and had kind gestures towards her. It wasn't about subtle things like Gale did for her. Gale tried to protect her, take care of her, be there for her. Peeta Mellark had given Prim a cake. A pretty cake, not very big but with a really colourful frosted. To Prim. Who could compete with that?

Katniss, very much in her role as a mean girl, tried to seem indiferent about it, but deep down what she seemed was pleased. She smiled a little and Katniss didn't smile often. And when the next day they went to Mellark's house to sell him a squirrel, she looked at him strangely, looked at him in a different way.

That stuff made Gale nervous. He had no idea how to handle it. Katniss was his girl. It didn't matter that she still didn't know. No mattered all other girls in the world. She was his girl and it was not debatable.

* * *

It was not as he had planned things to be. It was not what he had wanted for his life and yet, it had happened. She was not Jena, neither Lara, nor Aphril, nor any of the other girls he had been seeing. Her name was Madge and she didn't belong to the merchant class like the others. She was the daughter of the mayor and he had known her almost since forever. He had been trading with his father since he was just a boy (the mayor, well, turned a blind eye to certain things).

It's hard to explain how it happened, it was fast. Madge had always provoked him contrary feelings. On the one hand a kind of resentment for being rich, with everything in life, without the need to fight or worry about their loved ones being starving. On the other hand she was a sweet and quiet girl and pretty, really pretty. She was delicate like a porcelain figurine and she moved slowly as if she could break.

She was also kind and considerate and she was, undoubtedly, sad. In a way that was her main characteristic: sadness.

Without known when it begun or why, Gale had wanted to erase the sadness from her eyes. It was a small wish that appeared one day, almost without realizing it, and it was curdling in him. First he agreed to have a hot tea at her home, one day that he appeared there with purple lips because the frozen weather. Then he invited her for a walk and (amazing) she accepted. He didn't try to kiss her, he didn't get too close until she started smiling at him with some regularity. He took her to his favorite places, taught her how to shoot with a bow when he could convince her to go to the forest. It turned out that she wasn't so delicate or so fragile, she was brave in her own way and Gale began to like her more and more.

It seemed really obvious that it was reciprocal, that she liked him too. She still kept blushing, sketching shy smiles, couldn't stop looking at him. So, well, he told her father that he was fallen in love. The mayor wasn't agreed with it, as was expected, but he adored his only daughter and finally accepted him because Madge loved Gale. It was all very fast, Gale barely had time to find out what was happening. Things took an unexpected direction after that. They stopped seeing each other secretly and began to dine at her home, to see her daily. Madge got along great with her brothers, Poss loved her, Madge really liked his family. And some things led to anothers and in the end, he was getting married. This is how this things was in the District Twelve. It was preferable to marry young as it was likely to die young.

It maybe was a stroke of luck, a rarity of fate. He would marry Madge Undersee and live with her in a beautiful house which wouldn't have holes on the roof neither the walls. His mother and his brothers would move with him. He would have a new job and a new life and he ... he wouldn't be happy. He knew it, deep in his heart he knew it, but what could he do?

He had to give up Katniss. He had no other choice.

* * *

Seeing them together. Watching them talk, interact, anything, kept stirring his guts. He should have been glad, after all, he was getting married, he was going to start his life with someone else and she was his best friend, he wished her the best. It was fair for both. Mellark was a good boy. Gale knew that when Katniss finally gave in, and everything pointed out that sooner or later she was going to do it (who could resist that peak, shovel, peak, shovel, baker's strategy) he would love her and take care of her and be the most important thing in his life forever. There was nothing more to see the way he looked at her. There was admiration in his eyes, and desire and love. He didn't understand how he could be so transparent and Gale wondered, scared, if he would have been too. If, all those years back, he had been so obvious about what he really felt. He hoped not. That would be terrible. Terribly sad, according to how things had ended.

* * *

"Should I prepare you a party?" Asked Katniss.

"A party?" He asked.

They were deep in the forest, their refuge, the place they both shared, a place only for them.

"I don't know," she said. "I'm your best friend. Isn't the groom best friend supposed to organice a party for the groom before the wedding?"

She seemed worried. She had been like this lately, taciturn, as if her head was in another place. Worst of all, that gave Gale a kind of hope. Oh god mine , hopes for what? He should be locked up in a mental health centre. He was going to get married. Everything was spoken, prepared. And worse than hope, so stupid and uncontrollable, was that she would end up doing it too. She would get married and without a doubt, he wasn't going to be the groom. And he would have to dress up with his best shirt and see how she grabbed another's hand and made promises. That was going to kill him. Gale did not feel able to endure such a thing.

He didn't want Katniss to prepare any party, so he said:

"I think my brothers are already organizing something. You'd better take care of Madge. She is also your friend, prepare her something beautiful".

They were lying on the roof of Katniss's house, both of them. Katniss had spent the day with Madge. They had prepared strawberry cakes with Prim in the kitchen of the Mayor's house. Delly Cartright had been with them, and Peeta Mellark, probably. He decided not to think about it. Gale had spent the day with his brothers and some old friends fishing in the river and drinking white liquor, it was fun.

* * *

It was summer and the night was clear. All the stars were in sight.

"Well," said Katniss. "Well, that's it, we've ended up here".

Gale leaned on one elbow to see her.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing will ever be the same."

Gale did not like the statement.

"Everything will continue the same as always," he announced, with the certainty that it would be true. It had to be. He could not lose her more than he had already lost her.

"It's a lie".

"It's the truth".

"Don't lie," Katniss said, and lowering her voice she added, "It has already changed."

He had to shut up. They remained silent for a long time. Gale thought about showing her the stars knowing she knew them better than him. He was looking for something, he didn't know what, maybe a memory of her to keep in his mind, when she asked him:

"You love her, right?"

Gale rised up again in his elbow, practically on Katniss, who was still lying down and not looking at him, but at the night sky. He needed to see her, look at her and soak in her. Just once. Only one last time, then he would forget her.

Katniss blinked and then stared at him, but not like other times. She looked at him as if there was nothing else in the world to look at, just like he looked at her. Then Gale said:

"Yes. I love her. Forever".

And he kissed her.

* * *

The problem was that he didn't kiss her. He didn't kiss her because he was a jerk and he had gotten into a huge mess and had no idea how to fix it. He had to go see Madge at the wee hours of the morning. He had to throw little stones at Madge's window, like a boy in love (although in love with another).

"I knew it," Madge said, after the twenty worst minutes in Gale's life, which was the time he needed for his explanation. "I have always known it, I don't know why ... The worst part is that... deep down I'm glad for you, Gale. I'm glad for you and her".

"She doesn't love me," Gale said. The euphoria he felt at first was already leaving him. He felt like a crap. The worst person in the world. He had a very bad image of himself at that time. How was anyone be able to love him if it was not his direct family?

"For sure yes," said Madge.

"How do you know?"

"I know it".

Gale still felt like an ass, just as if he was suffering some severe colic. A very crappy one.

"I'm going to talk to your father." That was the best thing he could think of.

"No, I will do it".

"He's going to kill me".

"Maybe yes".

* * *

Katniss showed up at his home dressed in her best clothes on Sunday morning.

Gale was ready to go hunting. The forest was the only safe place. The rest of the District was not.

"Are we going? -He said

"Where? What about the wedding?" She asked.

"There won' t be wedding."

Katniss's face changed (to better? to worse? Actually, he couldn't tell)

"Was it your idea?" She asked.

Gale keep closed his mouth.

"I'm going to see Madge."

And she went out the door.

* * *

"I thought you worked in the Justice Building now" Peeta Mellark commented when he went to the bakery to sell the hunt of the day. It wasn' t his best hounting day. He had his head anywhere but where it should be.

"No one knows how long it can last," Gale said.

Peeta went inside to get some coins, but Gale grabbed his sleeve before he did.

"Don't give me anything, it's a gift."

"In exchange for?"

"For nothing," Gale said.

"You have come to the bakery to give my father a squirrel," Peeta said. " You could have sold it in the Hob, you could have let the animal lives. I know you do it when they are too young or females, you release them even if they have fallen into your traps. Katniss told me that. She talks a lot about you. It is for her. It's about her you want to talk about, right?".

-Can be.

Peeta Mellark stood at the door. He seemed bigger than he really was.

"What about Katniss? You're getting married with another girl, Hawthorne. You can't keep her. You have to let her go".

"I don't intend to keep her" Gale replied sulkily. Katniss is nobody's".

He said it fully convinced, even though he had often thought of her as his girl.

"So?"

"Then I want you to know that I'm not getting married with another, nor am I going to give up with her".

It was done. he had already said it. Peeta frowned at him.

"Do you love her?"

It was the second time someone asked him the same question in less than twenty-four hours. In this case , he had a clear answer. It was yes. He loved her. Of course, and in the widest sense of the word. But he wasn't telling it to Peeta before telling it to her. He turned and left.

* * *

Katniss was angry. He didn't need to see her face to know it. She was with her back to him, on a smooth rock in a forest clearing. She was undoing the hairstyle with her hands, the two braids she had crossed over her head, a special hairstyle, for his wedding. His failed wedding. She no longer wore the blue dress. She knew he was there before seeing him, spoke to him without looking at him as she continued untangle her hair and then braid it back into a single infinite spike.

"You've done it wrong, Gale. Worse tan wrong".

That was what she said.

"I know," he replied. Because he knew it well. "Have you seen Madge?"

"She cried, you know? And I also cried when I saw her. His father wants to kill you. He says you never deserved her and it's true. You don't deserve Madge. She is too good for you".

"I know it" Gale repeated. "But it was the most fair".

"The fairest thing for whom, Gale?" Asked Katniss.

"For her," he replied. "I wouldn't be able to ... It wouldn't have been fair, believe me Katniss. Neither for her or for me".

"So?"

"Then I screwed it up. I was wrong. I was overwhelmed by the possibility of leaving the mine, by the possibility of another life. And then I realized that it wasn't going to be enough. Madge is wonderful, but I am not, and she deserves someone who wants everything and gives everything. I wasn't going to be able, Katniss. There would always be a part of me that would stay out, that would not belong to her. I don't know if you' ll ever understand it. And I know I've done everything wrong and late, but ..."

"I know I'm your best friend and I want to support you," she said as she turned to him. "But you make it very difficult for me".

It was enough. He hadn't gone there to argue. He sat next to her and did something he had never done. No just because . He took her hand and intertwined her fingers with his.

Katniss looked at him in atonishment, their two hands together. But she didn't separate them.

"Gale," she said. "How are we going to be able to?"

He brought both their hands to Katniss's face and stroked her with his knuckles, later brought them to his mouth and kissed hers. She didn't still turn away.

"I don't know," Gale said. "From the beginning, I guess".

And then he kissed her on the lips.

And she didn't turn away.

* * *

**a/n: **my first attemp in English, so please, be nice. But I'll be grateful and I'll love you forever if you tell me what you think about it. Also, this is for the lovely writer xoVanilla-bean. She's simply the best.


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